Translating human simulation technologies to veterinary surgical training: accelerating adoption.

Through the reduction of live animal use in teaching surgical technique, the opportunities to deliberately study complex regional anatomy and practice surgical technique have decreased. With reduced exposure, there is concern some individuals are graduating without the requisite knowledge and proficiency to perform adequate surgical techniques. Ultimately, animals may unnecessarily suffer due to morbidities from limited or poor surgical competencies. We have translated developments derived from the human surgical simulation field for application to veterinary surgical training. We present our work on intuitive software for learning regional anatomy, surgical simulations, and on several limiting factors that impede the validation and adoption of simulation technologies for use by the veterinarian surgical community.